LITTLE BYTES OF LIFE

NARA to Pull Records at Archives II on Saturdays

The following press release has been posted on the web site of the National Archives:

National Archives Announces Pilot Program in Research Room at Archives II in MDNew Saturday records retrieval in Archives II Textual Research Room, November, 2010

Washington, DC…In response to user requests, for the month of November, 2010, the National Archives at College Park, MD (Archives II) will undertake a pilot program to provide archival records retrieval service for textual records on Saturdays. This pull service is only for records that have designated retrieval information, do not require screening for personal privacy and other sensitive information, and are housed in open, unclassified stack space. This pilot program is for the Textual Research Room at Archives II only.Records will be retrieved for use in the Textual Research Room at the following “pull” times: 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 2:30 p.m.

Background

The National Archives is the Federal agency that serves American democracy by safeguarding and preserving the records of our government, ensuring that the people can discover, use, and learn from this documentary heritage. It supports democracy, promotes civic education, and facilitates historical understanding of our national experience. Every subject relating to American history is covered in the nine billion records, the millions of photographs, maps and electronic records and the thousands of motion pictures and audio recordings that are available to the public at the 44 National Archives facilities nationwide.

The National Archives at College Park, MD, houses textual, microfilm, and special media records. Textual materials relate to military agencies from roughly the WWI and/or WWII periods and after, and a wide range of civilian agencies, including agriculture, commerce, education, the environment, foreign affairs, health and human services, housing, interior, law enforcement, labor, science and technology, transportation, and finance.

For more information, contact the National Archives Public Affairs staff at 202-357-5300.

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If you’ve never been to Archives II, here’s your chance. I had no idea that it even existed until this past summer, and now I’m completely in love with the place, especially the MAP ROOM (which apparently is not included in the Saturday pilot program).

Hat tip to C. Bettag for bringing this to the attention of the APG Members List.

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Elizabeth O’Neal is a genealogist, writer, and web developer who has been tracking her ancestors for nearly three decades. She began writing the blog "Little Bytes of Life" in 2007 as a means of “communicating with humans over the age of 1,” though now her writing is mainly focused on genealogy and technology.